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27 thoughts on “Rants! and Raves! 10-29-16”

Elvera is going to a baby shower at 2:00 this afternoon. She has already showered and done her hair. She comes in and asks, “Is this all right to wear?” She’s the prettiest great-grandmother there.
Jenn, youngest GD has had at least three miscarriages. But she went under physicians’ care this time even before she got pregnant. Little one is kicking and rowdy and is due on Dec. 15. He is viable now and everyone is happy for Jenn.

Back in the early seventies, I had a secretary who was childless. On purpose. She didn’t want to bring a child into the world she knew. If she had one, he/she would be in the forties now. Probably doing well. I don’t believe we should anticipate or outfigure God.
Having said that, and that I don’t believe in predestination, a couple of years ago I prayed, “Lord, if you have one selected for your kingdom that you haven’t assigned, give it to Jenn and Jeremy.”
I don’t know this child’s future. I’m convinced that it will be a world of chaos, but they are doing what they are supposed to do. But he will be in God’s hands. That was part of the promise.

🙂 Elvera is talking on the phone to her sister in Greenwood, SC. She mentioned to her that oldest GD brought her children over on her birthday. That was back on Oct. 19. This isn’t the first time she has mentioned that.
It’s amazing how important a small gesture can mean.

😀 A couple of weeks plus visiting grandchildren and daughter down South. We had such a good time. I would love to have grandchildren live closer to us, but am grateful we can still travel and that they can, too. Time is never enough when you are with loved ones. Evidence that we were meant for eternity.

😦 The ignorance of those who call themselves Christian and so misread the bible and our constitution. Their view of what Jesus did while on earth is so off. Their view of how Christians may express their faith is so off. Such terrible teaching! Why, oh why would anyone think Christians must only pray in their closets and churches, according to Jesus and our constitution? That our Founding Fathers taught this? I could go on, but am sure you see the same things around you.

🙂 My newest granddaughter has an Occupation Therapy person work with her. So far, she seems to have normal muscle tone and is right on schedule. What a blessing she is!

🙂 Another Saturday, more to do as the bathroom remodel approaches (hoping it gets done sometime before Armageddon)

😦 Beadboard. Caps and baseboards. Heights and electrical boxes. Fasteners? Oy! Who knew it was all so complicated? I’ll figure it out by Monday. Maybe. Got to get that ordered, it’s one of the final pieces I need to have on hand.

🙂 Grateful for all my unofficial counselors — Kim, real estate guy, a couple other guys at the dog park. But if I had to do it over again, I’d probably find a way to afford a contractor. I feel mentally exhausted by it all sometimes.

🙂 One of 2 election stories on my plate is finished, only one more to go. Everyone’s bracing for Nov. 8 which will be a long, long night for all of us in the newsroom — and one of our main political coverage reporters scheduled a medical procedure for the next day so he won’t be in on Wednesday to help do the required followup stories (and we’ll all be half awake the day after anyway, election weeks are a bear).

🙂 But there will be pizza delivered before the rush of deadlines that will go throughout the early morning hours as results trickle in. On primary night in June, I believe I drove up to my house at around 2:30 a.m., maybe later. No one out on my block except a raccoon and me.

🙂 Annie Oakley is racing through the house, back and forth, this morning. She seems happy.

😦 Our much anticipated & needed rain was DOA on Friday. A few sprinkles, that was it. Rain forecast for Sunday now has vanished from the 10-day outlook as well. Story of our lives.

As we are discussing predestination, because Chas brought it up in the first post of the day, our pastor says if people actually read it to understand they will see that it is not saying He determines individuals who will be saved but rather He determined the plan of salvation. I do read and I do disagree. Is that a commonly held belief? I believe that He determined before creation, who would be His. I believe we are supposed to be out telling the world the Good News. I believe we become believers when He baptizes us in the Holy Spirit and we follow along with good works, including water baptism. But he refuses to discuss any of this except to say if I read it I will see it clearly, so I am thinking of attending another church this week, just to get a break from that.

Did you know that the Boilermaker Special, Purdue’s mascot is the only mechanical mascot in college sports. It is road worthy, but too slow for highway speeds, so they haul it to away games on a truck.

Speaking of trucks, which Chas was, we had a recent accident out our way. A truck on 95 ran into a two thousand plus chunk of lead on the highway. Tore out his front axles and sent him off the road. Apparently, the truck ahead of him slowed for a deer and when he did, his load shifted onto the highway. So the second truck, a car hauler trailer attached, hit the lead. Then his truck started to burn so he got out. Only to be hit by a pickup that came off of his load. What a mess. Ironically funny but not humanly funny. The guy was air lifted to a major hospital. I don’t know his condition but God does, and we can pray for him.

Preach it sister. But, I want verses which state we have free will. We hear it and I was on the bandwagon as a new believer and I think there is something there, just not sure what it is. I was dead in my sins and now I am alive in Christ. He did it.

… Most people in the West, including Christians, unconsciously accept what is usually called the “libertarian view” of free will. This understanding of human freedom says that we have the ability to make spontaneous choices contrary to our dispositions and inclinations. Nothing determines our choices. We are always able to choose good or evil. Our wills are wholly neutral. …

… In The Freedom of the Will, Jonathan Edwards defines biblical freedom. Man is free, he says, to choose according to his disposition. Human beings always choose according to their strongest desire, and so we make free choices. We do what we want to do. Some may object that people often choose the undesirable, such as handing a wallet over to a mugger. But even if I do this, my strongest inclination has prompted my choice. All things being equal, I do not desire to give my wallet away. But if my choice is my wallet or my life, and I hand over my wallet, I prove that I want to live more than I want money.

Apart from Christ, we are dead in sin (Eph. 2:1) and wholly disposed to hate God. We only want darkness, and so we freely choose to reject Him. We freely choose to love and to serve Jesus only if the Spirit changes our hearts (John 3:1–8). Otherwise we remain lost.

🙂 Got the hall closet (mostly) cleaned out. Found my dad’s sailor cap (I’d wondered what happened to that) and some old plug-in telephones (?????). Sheesh, why did I keep those? Well, they’re now in a bag with other things to go off to he e-waste drop off next Saturday (they’re closed for the day now, but I did get my broken toaster turned in earlier today)

🙂 Found some old framed pictures, Iowa-themed, that my mom and aunt did as a project back in the late 1980s (from old lithographs found in 1800s books my grandfather had). I’ll want to make use of 🙂

🙂 Picked up the black accent tile that had been on back order and came in over a week ago, I just hadn’t gotten to it yet.

Oct. 28
My Utmost:
R 5:10
I am not saved by believing; I realize I am saved by believing. It is not repentance that saves me, repentance is the sign that I realize what God has done in Jesus Christ. The danger is to put the emphasis on the effect instead of on the cause. It is my obedience that puts me right with God, my consecration. Never! I am put right with God because prior to all, Christ died. When I turn to God and by belief accept what God reveals I can accept, instantly the stupendous Atonement of Jesus Christ rushes me into a right relationship with God; and by the supernatural miracle of God’s grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, not because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. The Spirit of God brings it with a breaking, all-over light, and I know, though I do not know how, that I am saved.
The salvation of God does not stand on human logic, it stands on the sacrificial Death of Jesus. We can be born again because of the Atonement of Our Lord. Sinful men and women can be changed into new creatures, not by their repentance or their belief, but by the marvelous work of God in Christ Jesus which is prior to all experience. The impregnable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We have not to work out these things ourselves; they have been worked out by the Atonement. The supernatural becomes natural by the miracle of God; there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has already done — “It is finished.”

And the believing comes from the invisible hand that moves in those who were chosen before the foundation of the earth …

The order of salvation Romans 8:29–30.

29 For those whom he jforeknew he also kpredestined lto be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be mthe firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also njustified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Against believing and having faith in the true God. That doesn’t mean we, as nonbelievers, weren’t decent or “good” or “nice” people in the world’s eyes.

But fallen man is born with a natural enmity toward God, a resistance to His authority over their lives.

Interesting, we had a guest preacher today and part of the theme (of the sermon & SS) was predestination. “It’s in the Bible” he said he was told when he was a new believer. And, yes, there it was. Rom. 8:4-5, 11; Rom. 9, 2 Thess. 2:13-14, etc., etc.

God moves first

“Lost sheep don’t find the shepherd, the shepherd finds the lost sheep.”

Hmmm, strange, the theme is everywhere for me today — I just started reading the new book by Sinclair Ferguson — “Devoted to God, Blueprints for Sanctification” — and came upon this right away (pgs 14-15):

“God’s foreknowledge of us is the love which he set upon us long before we responded to him. He chose us in love. In this sense Peter states that Jesus himself was ‘foreknown.’ Here Peter and Paul are at one in stressing that holiness finds its ultimate source in God’s loving election.

“Peter does not mean that God chose to save those he knew would want to be saved. For one thing that would make our salvation dependent on something in us, when Scripture tells us there is nothing in us that would constrain God’s choice. Such a view also operates with an inadequate understanding of sin. We are spiritually bankrupt; we are also God’s enemies. There is nothing in us that could qualify us for the loving election of the Father. We are ‘by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.’ Neither our good living nor our ability to make good choices causes diving election. They are the result of it. In fact, says Peter, this divine choice had in view the sanctifying work of the Sprit which in turn would lead to our obedience to Jesus Christ. God chose us in order to sanctify us. Divine election is the foundation of sanctification — not the other way around. Everything depends upon God taking the initiative.”

I try to remember that and what it looks like when I look at my adopted children. Am I loving them with His love? Are they receiving that love? Or am I loving them with a human desire for gratification?